Zurath Kodul, the actual suit

hey Nachturnus, you seem to know abit about this, on the knees, how would u suggest bending them. This is my firts time making a armored costume, and i know very little about any of this.
 
Well, I personally use a heatgun, but thats because we recently stripped the paint off of my house, and they are relatively expensive. If you dont want to invest in a heatgun, you can use a mapgas or similar blowtorch to heat the plastic, however you need to be careful because these blowtorches can melt the plastic through if your not careful.
 
You can buy a heatgun at a Home Depot for like $25.

Or just use a hair dryer set on hot...just have to hold over the plastic longer.

Sintra can also be bent with boiling water.
 
Well, I suggest making backplates out of several peices actually, using epoxy or something similar to glue them together, and then sanding it smoothe, that way you get the nice crisp lines. I'm planning on upgrading my 1st gen backplate before animazement this year, which is when my Gen2 armor will be done.

If your a real cheapass (me) you can actually build gauntlets with a little TCP, some velcro (hinges = better), lots of 2x4 ,and a little elastic. Thats actually how most of the people who produce vacu-formed gauntlets make their models in the first place. Not only will you get spiffy gauntlets that are real easy to modify and re-modify, but you get to buff up a little from moving around an extra .5-2 lbs on your arm! :p Only costs about 20$ too (minus all the woodworking crap)

I'm actually doing a custom gaunt design that requires me to make them out of 2x6 actually, and it will essentially look nothing like boba's gauntlets, but hey, alls fair in love and mandos.
 
Hmm, I might try your gaunt idea, but I'm currently making a set of custom gauntlets/armor from a pipe. It's not that bad. I tried making a cardboard outer frame, but it looks terrible. I'm also trying to use some leftover pieces and make a scissor-blade thing on my left arm.
 
Nachturnus said:
Well, I suggest making backplates out of several peices actually, using epoxy or something similar to glue them together, and then sanding it smoothe, that way you get the nice crisp lines.


I have no idea where I would cut the pieces; Im not terribly advanced in terms of making armor
 
well, my templates for the backplate have the lines for curvature drawn on them, and you can just cut away the parts that are flat, which I actually intend to do on version 3 of my mando for next year.
 
I like your thought of making guantlets different then boba's and jango's not all mandalorian armor is the same and there is bound to have different armor. In the insider with the article on the mandos, the guy in the father son picture had different guantlets. And in the newest insider, there is a guy with different chest and stomach armor.


Does anyone think that with the amount of new mandos popping up that they will become 501st approved?
 
Well, I think it's great to have a few "zero-budget Fetts" on the board. By the end of the year, I'll probably have a couple thousand bucks invested in my costume. If I took the time to make more parts myself, and made a few compromises, I'd probably end up spending far less.

It doesn't really matter if your armor is made of linoleum, cardboard, trash cans, etc. if you're happy with the result, and if you spend time on the small details, like weathering.

Zurath, you could get a lot of mileage out of that armor if you weathered it a little. Maybe pick a secondary paint color to show through the scratches, and make some convincing battle damage. Here's a quick and dirty 3D render of a chest plate with your color scheme:

x3iixf.jpg
 
WORD! :lol:

Count Dookie said:
Well, I think it's great to have a few "zero-budget Fetts" on the board. By the end of the year, I'll probably have a couple thousand bucks invested in my costume. If I took the time to make more parts myself, and made a few compromises, I'd probably end up spending far less.

It doesn't really matter if your armor is made of linoleum, cardboard, trash cans, etc. if you're happy with the result, and if you spend time on the small details, like weathering.

Zurath, you could get a lot of mileage out of that armor if you weathered it a little. Maybe pick a secondary paint color to show through the scratches, and make some convincing battle damage. Here's a quick and dirty 3D render of a chest plate with your color scheme:

x3iixf.jpg
 
MAJOR UPDATE!!!!!!

I finally got it to look right. I had the main armor finished around the 6th, but I was too busy with school to post it. I repainted my rollerblade knees for my suit, and they look better than the first set. I have my visor in (black mesh, simialr to what the florida garrison uses in the RG helms). I left it in the box for this long, so the paint has some natural weathering with white showing through.
without further ado, ZK V 1.5

in order:
1. I have yet to find a decent belt, so this will do for now. the armor was a little uneven, but it's late.

2. The shmuck behind the mask. I'm sorry for the expression, but I finally realize how blasted hot these things get. Also, it appears that this fellow would be a great recruit for the "special forces" in the Empire.

3. A better expression, "Dead or alive, it's still a hot suit in 90 degree weather."

Well, I hope I didn't do too bad. The elastic snapped on one of my shins, but I tucked it into my sock.
I know this isn't 501st quality, but I like it.
Thank you for any/all comments, ZK

3.jpg


6.jpg


7.jpg
 
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Not bad looking for such a low budget custom mando.

My advice would be to lose the cape and fanny pack and raise up your shoulder bells. I think if you do those 3 things it will help you to look more menacing. Also, try to remember when you put on your costume you're no longer a teenage kid you are a Mandolorian! Puff out your chest and shoulders and give us more of a "tough guy" pose. Give it a shot and let's see more pics.
 
Well good job on a working temp siut so far. If you really dont want to use the linolium armor pieces, you can always do what I did, and make it out of a trash can. I was skeptical at first, but I went out to home depot, and bought a 32 gallon RubberMade Brute bucket. Works great for the armor pieces. The pieces are light, flexible (not too flexible) and just good. I mean Im using it to go play paintball, so I can assure you its a good material for a set of armor. Also, you mentioned that you put a SW:BH RF screen on yours, I woulf liike to see a picture of that. Its appears you have beat me to it then...

-tubachris
 
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